PARADE CABOOSE CATCHES FIRE

Monday

Nov 11, 2013 at 10:42 AM

Drew Van DykeMMI Editor

A longstanding attraction in several local parades ended in flames this past Friday afternoon (Nov. 8).

The Forty and Eight Voyager 292 motorized caboose, which has participated in parades in Columbia, Huntsville, and Moberly, amongst others, caught fire Friday, at around mid-afternoon, while it was being prepared for Saturday's (Nov. 9) Veteran's Day Parade.

Jerry Orr and Donnie Fuller had just pulled the caboose out of the shed to the northwest of the Moberly American Legion Post building with a tractor. The pair was there from the time the fire started, through its extinguishment by the Moberly Fire Department.

"We were getting it ready for the parade tomorrow, and we were having trouble getting it to start," Orr told the MMI at the scene Friday. "We didn't know whether it was a fuel pump or what, so we just poured a little gas in the carburetor, and it backfired and it came up [in flames]."

Orr said that the two men are lucky to have gotten out of the caboose alive and unscathed.

"When I turned around, [Donnie's] arm was...on fire," he said. "He was walking out, and I said 'Donnie, you're on fire! Take your coat off!' He was on fire, and I was on fire."

Fuller showed the MMI a singed winter coat and some burnt hair on the right side of his head. Orr said the fire just got him on the hand.

"I think we're both okay," Orr said.

The Moberly Fire Department confirmed this story at the scene to the MMI.

Another fortunate happening in connection with the event: because the pair of Orr and Fuller pulled the caboose out of the shed before trying to start it, they avoided causing fire damage to several pieces of equipment from the Magic City Line — the town's miniature railroad — which were being held in storage within the same shed compartment at that time.

"That thing was built 30 years ago," Fuller said, of the caboose, which was gutted and water-logged by the MFD in an attempt to extinguish the blaze, which had already damaged it long beyond repair.